After a week talking (mostly) about sleazy Republicans, we switch to sleazy Democrats today for a bit on The BradCast.

I'm joined by great progressive blogger Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny.com, who is also co-founder of the Blue America PAC, to discuss the recent smear of Bernie Sanders by a Hillary Clinton-supporting Super PAC, which is not supposed to be coordinating with the Clinton campaign or vice versa. But are they?

"There's no chance that it's not coordinated," Klein tells me, while admitting he has no hard evidence. "They'll deny it. It's illegal. If they admitted it, they would all go to jail. But the Clinton campaign, just like the Republican campaigns of Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz and Scott Walker --- they're all coordinating with their SuperPACs."

Also, we discuss the absurd fiction of these so-called "SuperPACs", the failure of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to do anything about blatant violations of campaign finance laws, and the remarkable hypocrisy of the DNC and the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) in the wake of the GOP's latest threat to shut down the government, this time over a pretend Planned Parenthood "controversy".

Also today: New York Times finally notices how the Republican Party has lost touch with reality; Donald Trump's ingenious "plan" to "save Social Security"; and Desi Doyen joins us with Green News Report coverage of this week's CNN/GOP debate and the hottest August ever recorded on Planet Earth...

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venezuelan *usa-made* voting machines spit out paper tickets for double-checking, unlike those in the usa...

Smartmatic, which, when I last checked, had the contract for all Venezuelan elections, is a Venezuelan company. If their machines are made in the U.S., that would be news to me. (Possible, I suppose, but news to me.)

As to "paper tickets for double-checking", most U.S. jurisdictions don't do that, because they don't NEED to do that because, unlike Venezuelan elections, they use verifiable hand-marked paper ballots, unlike Venezuela's 100% unverifiable electronic "ballots".

Of those jurisdictions in the U.S. which use electronic devices similar to those used in Venezuela, many of them DO spit out a "paper ticket". And, just like those systems which don't AND just like the systems in Venezuela, they are also 100% unverifiable after an election.

bernie's lazy aides should not be allowed to lie in his name just to fend off red-baiting...

Not sure what his "lie" was, other than regarding Chavez as a "dictator" which I'd describe as more of an (inaccurate) opinion than a lie.

I've long been troubled by the fact that Media Matters, which otherwise strives to call the GOP and their media allies to account for inaccurate reporting, has repeatedly displayed a pro-Hillary bias.

However, it is one thing to acknowledge that bias; quite another to say, as Howie does, that one is "certain" there's been collusion between the Clinton campaign and a David Brock-run super PAC. Since Howie admits he lacks evidence of collusion that would stand up in a court of law, the most that Howie could appropriately assert is that collusion is "likely" given the manner in which super PACs are run.